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Kayla Marie Golden, 28, was leaving an afternoon checkup with her 3-day-old son, Keegan, when she had a verbal altercation with a woman in a Lexus parked next to her pickup truck, Montgomery County sheriff’s Lt. Dan Norris said.

Witnesses said the woman repeatedly shot Golden, took the infant and sped away, hitting the dying mother as she screamed “my baby” and tried to reach into the Lexus, Norris said. Witnesses also reported hearing as many as seven gunshots and said a man also was in the Lexus, which is blood-stained on the driver’s side, Norris said.

Officers searched a nearby apartment complex Tuesday night for the boy but did not find him, Deputy U.S. Marshal Alfredo Perez told The Associated Press in a brief interview. It wasn’t immediately clear what led authorities to the complex, where officers were seen wielding guns and riot shields.

The infant was last seen wearing a green-and-white one-piece outfit displaying the word “handsome.”

The shooting happened just after 2 p.m. outside the Northwoods Pediatric Center in Spring, which is about 20 miles north of Houston. A statewide emergency alert has been issued for the baby.

Witnesses described the shooting suspect as a thin, gold-haired black woman, apparently in her late 20s or early 30s, Norris said. They also said the Lexus was sky blue or light green.

Joshua Jesson said he was in the clinic with his girlfriend when he heard gunshots. He said he saw the Lexus next to the pickup truck, then later looked back and saw the car was gone and a woman lying in the spot where the Lexus had been parked.

“I thought she just passed out. Then somebody ran in here and said, ‘Somebody got shot,’” he said.

Police quickly surrounded the clinic and much of the parking lot with crime-scene tape, and yellow markers were placed next to a purse and pair of brown sandals near a red pickup truck. Spent ammunition also was nearby.

The clinic is in an area thick with strip malls.

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Sinead O’Connor

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In the lengthy post, the outspoken Irish singer/songwriter is outraged that George Zimmerman, who claims he shot Martin in self-defense, has not been arrested. She writes:

“I would like to extend my very deepest sympathies to the family and other loved ones of murdered teenager, Treyvon Martin. I am very sad today (and am certain the whole of Ireland is) to learn of poor Treyvon’s terrifying ordeal and horrified by the fact his known and named and admitted killer has not been arrested, despite the crime having taken place a month ago. This is a disgrace to the entire human race.”

Several other celebrities including Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, Spike Lee and members of the NBA’s Miami Heat have all expressed their concern and support for Martin’s family.

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President Obama has called for a full investigation of the incident, even adding in a recent speech: “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.”

O’Connor, who made headlines in the 1992 when she ripped up a photo of Pope John Paul II during a Saturday Night Live performance, is known for expressing her political views. She sang Bob Marley‘s “War” and changed some of the song’s lyrics and tore the photo to protest sexual abuse in the Catholic church.

On her website, she writes with similar conviction about the Trayvon Martin case. She denounces racist reactions to the case as being historically short-sighted because, she writes, Africa is the birthplace of civilization:

“For those out there who believe black people to be less than pure royalty, let me inform you of a little known, but scientifically proven, many times over, FACT. Which after reading, you will hopefully feel both very stupid and very sorry. For you dishonor your own mothers and grandmothers.

EVERY human being on earth, no matter what their culture, creed, skin colour, or nationality, shares one gene traceable back to one African woman. Scientists have named it ‘The Eve Gene’. This means ALL of us, even ridiculously stupid, ignorant, perverted, blaspheming racists are the descendants of one African woman.”

She continues to explain how black people have contributed to society, invoking Jesus Christ:

These beautiful people continue to believe in and even manifest Jesus Christ better than you do. That alone could stand as the greatest reason your racism is blasphemy, were it not for all the other reasons.

These people you hate and fear ARE the body of Christ, just as we all are. Every child, woman or man. And they know it. Maybe thats why you cant bear to look at them. Because you see Jesus Christ and you cant stand the light.

Stop this ridiculous and uneducated attitude. You would be dead without black people. Think of all the greatest music ever composed. The greatest songs. The greatest inspirational heroes.. Muhammad Ali, Mandela, Martin Luther King, Harriet Tubman, Soujourner Truth, Bob Marley, Nina Simone, Curtis Mayfield. So many absolute angels, sent from God.

Without the inspiration of these people many millions of so-called ‘white’ people, including myself would not have had the strength to pay the price of life.

But she also urges black youth to love themselves, put an end to black-on-black violence and not get caught up in hip-hop’s materialistic messages. She writes:

Go back to strong black musical guides who left you information in the 60s and 70s. when they were living through the civil rights struggle. Curtis Mayfield. The Impressions. Nina Simone, Mahalia Jackson. Sing back the Holy Spirit ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, as those artists did.

Forget bling. Forget “Get Rich Or Die Trying”. That is an evil message. Evil my dears is only life backwards. Turn it the right way up. With music. The messages American black youth are being given through music are not about the spiritual and therefore strong and conquering but PEACEFUL making of YOUR country into the wonderful place it secretly is and can be.. BECAUSE OF YOU, and BY YOU!!

You know not how you are adored, appreciated, valued, loved, cried for,smiled for, prayed for, all over the world. You know not how much inspiration and uplift-ment of heart you give to millions just by your presence on earth. These musical guides will give you self-esteem. When you have self-esteem you can achieve anything. You can stand in the street as many did yesterday and change your country peacefully and with song. Chant down Babylon as the Rastas say. Rastafari will also give you self esteem. Investigate it.

She even implores all Americans and her fellow Irish to seek justice for the Martin family:

Please.. ALL Americans should deplore this crime. As should ALL people of ALL nations. And deplore the fact this man has not been arrested. All Irish people should do the same. And I ask that we here in Ireland should express through our American embassy that we would like to see this man arrested this very minute. Because racism is not acceptable. Nor is vigilantism. And this was very clearly in no way at all a case of self-defense.

It’s powerful stuff that few celebrities would dare to express.

Read more here.

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Brett Johnson is a Brooklyn, N.Y.-based writer and the founder of the music and culture blog VeryArtistical.com.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson

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Martin, 17, was shot and killed in Sanford, Fla., by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch captain who claimed he was acting in self-defense.

Wilson, who represents Florida’s 17th Congressional District, can be seen in this videotaped speech saying she’s “tired of burying young black boys.”

She compares Trayvon Martin’s case to another young black boy, Martin Lee Anderson, who was beaten to death at a Florida bootcamp about three years ago. The Anderson beating was caught on tape yet none of the guards were jailed.

Even with the increased media attention being given to the case of Trayvon Martin’s death, Wilson’s plea to her fellow elected officials is one of the most impassioned statements critiquing the practice of the racial profiling young black males.

WATCH:

An excerpt from her speech is transcribed below:

Mr. Speaker, I am tired of burying young black boys.

I am tired of watching them suffer at the hands of those who fear them and despise them. I’m tired of comforting mothers, fathers, grandparents, sisters, and brothers after such unnecessary, heinous crimes of violence.

In Florida, almost 3 years ago, as I served in the Florida senate, a young black boy, Martin Lee Anderson, was beaten to death at a Florida bootcamp. It was all captured on a State of Florida Corrections video and shown all over the world. Martin Lee Anderson was beaten and tortured until his lifeless body couldn’t take anymore, and then Martin Lee Anderson was dead, at the hands of several bootcamp guards. A young boy, who wanted to be somebody! A young boy who was trying to turn his life around.

After they beat him to death on international TV as the world watched, over and over again—not one guard was sent to prison. Not one was even reprimanded. In fact, after we closed down every bootcamp in Florida, many of the accused received promotions.

Well, guess what? In Florida, we have another Martin—Trayvon Martin. Trayvon Martin was shot to death by a renegade wannabe policeman neighborhood watchman.

Trayvon Martin lived in Miami, Florida, in District 17—my congressional district. Trayvon, a 140-pound young black boy, 17 years old, was just trying to live and reach 18. In spite of that, the accused killer, George Zimmerman, has not been charged, and is using the term of “self-defense.”

Read more here.

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Brett Johnson is a Brooklyn, N.Y.-based writer and the founder of the music and culture blog VeryArtistical.com.

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Baby Hiram Lawrence was one of seven victims wounded a week ago when gunmen opened fire on a group of people watching the filming of a rap video in West Oakland.

Family members were gathering at the hospital Thursday afternoon to say their final goodbyes to the baby.  The family has cleared the hospital to comment on the case.  A statement is expected soon.

Read more at kron4.com.

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Surveillance footage released by police on Wednesday captured the ambush and near fatal shooting of Tyquan Sewall, 18, outside a Brooklyn McDonald’s.

The video clearly shows the intricate scheme, where a collection of young assailants pass along a .32-caliber Smith & Wesson before one of them approaches Sewall, aims the pistol at his head and fires.

A detailed rundown of the footage shows:

• 0:12– A man wearing a black shirt and carrying a black bag hands the bag to another man in a white T-shirt.

• 0:15– The man in the white T-shirt pulls out the revolver as his pal walks inside the restaurant.

• 0:20– A man in a red track jacket is seen walking towards McDonald’s.

• 0:24– The man in red enters the McDonald’s and is passed the revolver.

• 00:25– Sewal enters the frame, walking toward McDonald’s wearing black shorts and a white shirt.

• 0:30– Sewal reaches the entrance as the man in red steps out of the door, aims the pistol at Sewall’s head and fires.

“What you see here is a pretty elaborate choreography of handing off the gun from the first player, to the second player and to the gunman – all along luring the victim to the ambush,” said Paul Browne, top spokesman for the NYPD

Read more at the New York Daily News.

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Damark King, 19, is charged with assault, weapons possession, criminal use of a firearm and reckless endangerment.

King hit 2-year-old Samyah Bailey with a stray bullet outside her Staten Island home on Wednesday.

With blood dripping down into the little girl’s eyes, Williams whisked Samyah into a car and rushed her to the hospital. They were met by an ambulance along the way, and got a police escort.

Read more at the New York Daily News.

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Jimmy Cannon was taken to Stroger Hospital and is listed in critical condition. He was shot 8 times in the shoulders, hand, and legs.

The family said they were at a cousin’s birthday party when the shooting occurred. Cannon was taken to Stroger Hospital in serious-to-critical condition but is expected to recover.

View more videos at: http://nbcchicago.com.

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Read More At GlobalGrind.com

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Chastain Montgomery Sr. was indicted by a grand jury on two counts of killing a government employee in the Oct. 18 shooting inside the post office in the small West Tennessee town of Henning.

The indictment says the 47-year-old Montgomery killed Judy Spray and Paula Robinson during a robbery of the post office that he committed with his son, Chastain Montgomery Jr.

Edward Stanton, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee, said the father and son aided and abetted each other in the crime, but declined to elaborate on any other details. He said the investigation is ongoing.

The 18-year-old Montgomery Jr. was killed in a shootout with police on Feb. 14 after a police chase, and his father is jailed on charges related to the shoutout. Afterwards, federal authorities began investigating whether a gun used by the teenager was also linked to the post office shootings.

The sheriff’s office in Tipton County, just north of Memphis, said Montgomery got out of a stolen pickup armed with two handguns and fired at officers several times before a deputy shot him dead.

Chastain Montgomery Sr. was arrested when he went to the scene and tried to get in the stolen pickup truck his son had been driving. He ran through crime scene tape, ignoring the shouted warnings of officers and headed straight for the truck, which was still running.

Montgomery Sr., a state prison guard, was carrying dye-stained cash, and his home in the Nashville suburb of La Vergne was searched that evening for guns, money from recent bank robberies, stolen property and dark clothing, according to warrants in the case.

The father was jailed on charges of evidence tampering, being an accessory, theft between $1,000 and $10,000 and resisting arrest. In the newly announced indictment, he also faces federal charges of robbery with a dangerous weapon, using a firearm in relation to a crime of violence, and two counts of unlawfully causing the death of a person.

The Henning post office shootings shook the town of 1,200 people about 45 miles northeast of Memphis, and residents have been praying for an arrest. Authorities have been quiet throughout the investigation, refusing to disclose details of the shootings, a possible motive, or even how many people they thought were involved.

The U.S. Postal Inspection Service had offered a reward of $50,000 for information that led to a conviction.

Stanton said the victims’ families and the town’s residents have suffered. “Hopefully this does begin that process of restoring and healing for that community and for those families,” he said.

Montgomery Sr. is in the process of being transferred into federal custody and no hearing has been set in federal court.

Mike Dunavant, District Attorney for the area that includes Tipton County, said the state was deferring to federal authorities in its prosecution of Montgomery Sr. for the state charges. But he didn’t rule out additional state charges being filed against him.

John Mehr, a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agent in West Tennessee, called the announcement of the indictment a glorious day for the victims’ families, but the investigation was not over.

“Although this is an occasion that they’ve been looking for, there’s lots ahead of them,” Mehr said. “They suffered tremendously in the last few months.”

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A woman fatally shot three people and herself at a Seattle home Thursday, injuring another woman who fled into the front yard and told officers: “My mom has gone crazy,” police said.

The woman who opened fire was a grandmother who first killed her son-in-law, then two granddaughters and then wounded her daughter as the younger woman fled, a 17-year-old relative told The Seattle Times.

“Grandma just shot them for no reason,” Tony Sun told the newspaper. Sun said he arrived home shortly after the shootings and was taken onto a police bus with his surviving family members, who told him what had happened.

Neither police nor the King County medical examiner’s office have officially identified the victims. Police spokesman Sean Whitcomb says officers have not determined a motive.

Officers responded to a report of gunshots at about 1:30 p.m. and could still hear shots being fired from the house when they arrived, Whitcomb said. A man in his 50s ran into the house. Two more shots were fired and he ran back out, telling officers his wife had shot herself.

When police were able to go inside, they found the four dead, including a woman in her 50s they believe was the shooter, Whitcomb said.

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He said police don’t believe anyone else was involved.

Assistant Police Chief Jim Pugel said the wounded woman — who is expected to survive — was able to speak to officers when they arrived.

“All she said was, ‘My mom has gone crazy,’ ” Pugel said.

In addition to the older woman, the dead included two young women in their teens and a man in his 30s, police said.

Sun identified the older woman as Chhouy Harm.

He told The Times the wounded woman was Thyda Harm and added that the dead included her husband, Chean Harm Phan, and two of their daughters, Jennifer Harm, 17, and Melina Harm, 14.

The wounded woman was in serious but stable condition at Harborview Medical Center, hospital spokeswoman Susan Gregg-Hanson said Thursday afternoon.

Whitcomb said police would not release the names or ages of the deceased Thursday, adding that the information would come from the medical examiner. A medical examiner’s investigator said no formal identifications were expected before Friday afternoon.

The Times reported that Sun and other relatives confirmed the names.

According to Tony Sun’s account, his aunt, Lisa Sun, 28, was upstairs when Chhouy Harm told her to go into her room and shut the door. She did, but waited at the door. Then she heard gunshots and ran downstairs and out of the house. She was followed by Thyda Harm’s 16-year-old son, who scooped up his 6-year-old sister and fled, Sun said.

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Police said two handguns were recovered from the house in a lower middle-class neighborhood a block north of southwest Seattle’s city limits.

Neighbor Bobby Miller told KOMO that police showed up almost immediately after the shots were fired.

“I just heard gunshots. I come out and cops were all over,” Miller said. “Just ‘bam, bam’ and that was it. Then screaming over here.”

Travis Rowland, 53, said he was about a block away waiting to get his truck repaired at an auto shop when he saw a woman run from the house hollering.

As police arrived, Rowland said, a man “busted away from the police officers and ran into the house.” Rowland said the man was inside for about 10 to 15 seconds before “there were a couple more shots, pow, pow, pow. At first I didn’t know who was shooting. He came back outside.”

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A man drove a pickup truck loaded with ammunition into a suburban Dallas police station’s parking lot on Tuesday, set the truck on fire and exchanged gunfire with police, officials said. The gunman was the only casualty and died at the scene.

McKinney Deputy Police Chief Scott Brewer said the man was shouting as the truck became engulfed in flames and the ammunition inside began exploding. The still-unidentified gunman then began shooting toward the police station and there was a “brief exchange of gunfire,” Brewer said.

It wasn’t immediately clear how the gunman died.

Brewer said police had no idea why the attack occurred or whether the man planned the attack alone.

“We believe there is just one shooter at this point in time,” Brewer told reporters at McKinney City Hall. The police station sits amid a large cornfield near Collin College.

One building on campus was hit by bullets, but there were no injuries, said campus spokeswoman Lisa Vasquez. The college locked its campus down to students and staff for two hours after the shooting, and has blocked access to the public, Vasquez said. Patrol cars blocked street entrances to the police department building in McKinney, a suburb of about 127,000 people 30 miles north of Dallas.

Matt Payne told television station WFAA that he was driving to work with his wife and 10-year-old son when they saw a white truck on fire. He heard gunshots and saw a man standing in a field with what appeared to be a bulletproof vest and “some sort of semiautomatic rifle,” he said. A campus police officer appeared and there was more gunfire.

“I knew that I didn’t need to be there. We got out of there as quick as we could,” he told the station.

Department of Public Safety spokesman Tom Vinger said Texas Rangers, highway patrol and DPS aircraft were on the scene or headed to the area. Vinger could provide no further details.

The Collin County Community College District sent an e-mail alert to college staff and students shortly after 9:30 a.m. Tuesday warning that shots had been fired and that the central campus in McKinney was closed.

The e-mail said: “Shots fired. Campus on lockdown. Cops on the scene. Details to follow.”

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OAKLAND, Calif. – A California man known for his anger over left-leaning politics said after a freeway shootout with CHP officers that he had been planning an attack on the ACLU and another nonprofit group, police said Tuesday.

Byron Williams, 45, a parolee with two previous bank robbery convictions, wanted to “start a revolution” by killing people at the American Civil Liberties Union and Tides Foundation, both in San Francisco, Oakland police Sgt. Michael Weisenberg said in court documents. The San Francisco Chronicle is referring to Williams as a Tea Party sympathizer.

The weekend shootout occurred during a 24-hour span in Oakland when a sniper shot at police officers from a high-rise building, and a Virginia man who had a job interview in the San Francisco Bay area was fatally shot in downtown Oakland by robbers who got away with just $17.

The spate of violence came just a week after budget problems led Oakland to lay off 80 police officers.

The Oakland Police Department is leading the investigation into the shootout, but no city officers were involved in the incident that occurred on Interstate 580.

The FBI joined the case after a binder entitled “California” was discovered in the truck driven by Williams and removed by a bomb squad robot, CHP spokesman Sam Morgan said.

Officer Jeff Thomason, an Oakland police spokesman, said the two nonprofit groups were targeted because of their political ideologies. The ACLU is a civil rights group, while the Tides Foundation says on its website that it works to advance progressive social change.

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“It’s an unbelievable incident,” Thomason said, adding that authorities believe Williams was acting alone. “We’re very fortunate in the Bay Area that the CHP was able to stop him.”

Sitting in a wheelchair, Williams was arraigned Tuesday in Alameda County Superior Court after being released from a hospital where he was treated for gunshot wounds to his arms and legs. He looked down and did not enter a plea as a judge read the charges — four counts of attempted murder on peace officers, plus weapons and body armor enhancements.

The judge also noted that Williams’ two previous convictions for bank robbery could make him eligible for life in prison under California’s Three Strikes Law if he is convicted in the CHP shootout.

No CHP officers were seriously injured in the incident.

Williams was wearing a bulletproof vest and armed with three guns, including a rifle, as he traveled to San Francisco late Saturday night in his mother’s Toyota Tundra, police said. He is accused of opening fire on California Highway Patrol officers who approached his truck after pulling him over for speeding and weaving in traffic.

Williams surrendered and was arrested after a 12-minute gunbattle with 12 officers, most of whom responded as Williams reloaded several times, police said. Morgan said about 150 rounds were fired during shootout.

Williams had “made a decision that he would not be arrested and that he was willing to shoot and kill the officers,” according to the probable cause statement filed in court.

During a police interview at the hospital, Williams said he had planned to camp out in San Francisco on Sunday night then begin his attack when the ACLU and Tides Foundation opened Monday, Thomason said.

Christine Coleman, spokeswoman for the foundation, said the organization had taken additional security measure to protect its staff.

“We had never heard of this man before,” Coleman said. “We cannot speculate about the incident while the investigation is going on.”

Phone calls to the ACLU of Northern California were not immediately returned.

Williams also told investigators he was upset because he had not been able to find a job and because of the poor economy, Thomason said.

Williams’ mother, Janice Williams, told the San Francisco Chronicle her son had been angry with “the way Congress was railroading through all these left-wing agenda items.”

A phone message left for Janice Williams by The Associated Press was not immediately returned.

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ALBANY, N.Y. – Police have released video showing an upstate New York police officer fatally shooting a 37-year-old man who had rammed his car into another officer last winter.

The video of the chaotic encounter with parolee Howard Tucker was combined from two sources: a newly installed police car dashboard camera and a surveillance camera trained on a street where Tucker was pulled over by two Albany police officers on Feb. 16.

The dashboard footage shows the officers on either side of Tucker’s car just before he speeds away. The second camera captures Tucker’s car skidding on a snow-covered street as the officers chase it on foot.

Tucker’s car sideswipes a utility pole, then runs into one of the officers as his partner opens fire on Tucker.

A grand jury last month cleared the officers of any wrongdoing in the shooting.

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From ChicagoBreakingNews.com:

At least 15 people were wounded in shootings on the South and West Sides Tuesday night and early this morning, according to police.

The attacks included the shooting of seven people in the East Garfield Park neighborhood, the shooting of two people in the Little Village neighborhood and the shooting of a carjacking victim on the South Side.

At least five people were wounded in other shootings, according to police.

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Sixteen people were shot, two of them fatally, in three separate incidents in a two-mile radius in east Baltimore Sunday night, police said.

Detectives were searching Monday morning for a gunman who opened fire at a backyard cookout, wounding 12 people, police department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.

None of the dozen victims suffered life-threatening injuries. The victims were hit in the legs, arms, shoulders and backs, and the wounded included a 2-year-old girl and a pregnant 23-year-old woman, police said.

Detectives were interviewing witnesses and working to develop a description of the gunman, who walked into the small backyard of a rowhouse on Ashland Avenue and opened fire with a semiautomatic weapon around 9 p.m., according to police.

Two 19-year-old men were shot and killed in a separate incident less than a mile away, Guglielmi said. The victims were identified as Gary Martin and Darien Jones. Police had no immediate suspects.

A third shooting incident left two men with non-life-threatening injuries, Guglielmi said.

Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III was on the scene of both the cookout shooting and the double homicide, Guglielmi said. The incidents highlight the need to rid Baltimore’s streets of illegal guns, the spokesman said.

“We can only do so much without help from the community and others,” Guglielmi said. “We can put a police car in every driveway, but unless people step up, we can only get so far.”

A drive-by shooting at a community rally on the Texas Southern University campus Wednesday night left six people wounded, a school spokeswoman said. Police believe the incident was gang-related.

One male student was among the six people who were shot and treated for serious, but non-life-threatening injuries, TSU spokeswoman Eva Pickens said.

Witnesses told police that one car drove by and opened fire on the parking lot where a popular Houston rapper was promoting community service and voter registration, Pickens said.

Peter Role, a local music promoter, told the Houston Chronicle he heard what sounded “like the Fourth of July.”

“We heard some gunshots and everybody was hitting the ground,” Role said.

Campus police believe the incident resulted from a rivalry between two gangs, one from Missouri City, a suburb southwest of Houston, and the other from Fresno, a small town outside Missouri City, she said.

Among the rally participants was Houston City Councilman Peter Brown, who is running for mayor in November’s election.

Lucinda Guinn, who manages Brown’s mayoral campaign, said the rally — billed as a “family block party” — included a concert by rapper Trae the Truth and featured participants such as Brown and U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee. Guinn said she had no details on the shootings, but was dismayed that “an effort for bringing a very positive message to the community” would end in violence.

Nancy Byron, Trae’s publicist, told the Chronicle that the rapper already had left the event at 8:30 p.m. or 8:45 p.m. and did not see the shooting.

“We’re very depressed about it and we feel like it<s a black eye on an otherwise very community-driven event,” Byron said.

An e-mail sent to Lee wasn’t immediately returned. Her telephone mailbox was full and wouldn’t take messages.

Texas Southern is a historically black university in Houston with an enrollment approaching 10,000 students.

From the Amsterdam News

Being hailed as a hero, Jeselle Page selflessly put her own life before her nephew’s as shots rang out near a playground. As the family and community grieve, she is being remembered as a woman who made the ultimate sacrifice for a child she cared for so much.

A stray bullet shot Page on Sunday afternoon when two men were involved in a gun battle on Morris Street in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. Reports indicate that Page was watching her 8-year-old nephew, R.J. Gomez, while he was in a playground. Page was babysitting for a family member.

As bullets flew, Page, shot in the chest, nonetheless picked up the boy, shielding him and taking him to safety. Terrence Villanueva was arrested and charged with killing Page. His rap sheet spans back to 2002 with crimes that include rape, assault, and drug and weapons possession. He served a yearlong prison sentence in 2006.

Page had just moved into the neighborhood from Harlem. She recently won a lottery for an affordable apartment living alone. She had been living in Bushwick for only six months.

Speaking to the AmNews on behalf of the family, Page’s brother Kevin Fountain said that his sister was the youngest of a family of six sisters and one brother. Affectionately known as “Jazzy,” Page had no children but enjoyed caring for them whenever someone needed the help. “My sisters are taking it kind of hard and my nephew is traumatized,” he said. “Everybody is taking this on different levels.”

Click here to read more.

From The New York Times

A chaotic predawn shootout outside a Jersey City apartment building between a shotgun-wielding suspect and the police left five officers wounded — two critically, including one shot in the face — and two suspects dead, according to the Jersey City mayor, Jerramiah Healy, who spoke at a news conference in Jersey City.

Five police officers were taken to New Jersey Medical Center with gunshot wounds in what Mayor Healy called a “terrible gunfight,” and several others sustained injuries relating to the fight.

The officer who had been shot in the face had no signs of life when he was brought in, officials said, but was revived, said doctors at the Jersey City Medical Center. He remained in extremely critical condition.

The other police officer in critical condition was hit in the neck and was in surgery.

Of the other officers injured, one was hit in the vest, another in the arm, and another was grazed in the leg by a bullet and already released.

Gunfire erupted just after 5 a.m. outside an apartment on 24 Reed Street near Bergen Avenue, where the two suspects had already been under investigation by the police. According to another Jersey City law official who requested anonymity, the two people dead are suspected of conducting a robbery in Jersey City with shotguns in June.

Click here to read more.

From MSNBC

Adam Williams’ improbable journey to Elkhart began in a hail of bullets on a dark road in the Mississippi Delta at 2 a.m. one morning in 1992.

“I just didn’t even believe it was happening,” said Williams, 35, who with his wife, Maggie, 31, now owns two popular Elkhart restaurants and is planning to open a third.

Leaving a nightclub with his brother, sister and sister’s boyfriend, Williams watched what seemed like a surreal slow-motion video as two vehicles full of masked gunmen drove by each side of their car with automatic rifles and handguns blazing. Then the attackers turned around and made another pass.

His sister was shot seven times and her boyfriend also was hit, wounds from which they recovered. Williams and his brother escaped unscathed from what was likely payback for an earlier fight.

As he lay on the floor of the bullet-riddled car, Williams felt, “It was almost like God wrapped his arms around me. I knew from then basically that I had a purpose.”

Williams’ journey is one that began, like many, with a dream. Stunted by poor choices, it was nourished anew with faith and love and now flowers with redemption. It is a story from which Elkhart and the nation might take a page as they struggle to make fresh starts in these troubled times.

The dream was simple. From childhood, “I knew I was going to be a chef and own a restaurant.” Growing up in Shelby, Miss., a town of about 3,000 where half the residents live in poverty, that seemed a tall order.

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Here Is Jamie Hector’s Statement Regarding The Incident

“I first want to make it clear that the shooting incident yesterday did not take place at my home, nor did it involve me, my wife, nor any of the invited guests.  Although none of the guests were hurt physically, the trauma of this experience is unforgettable.   My condolences go out to the families of the victims.

I grew up in Brooklyn and this kind of violence is one of the reasons I founded Moving Mountains, Inc., a non-profit youth organization that redirects talented youth through the arts. I focus their energy on positive alternatives in an effort to deter them from this type of violence, which takes place on the streets everyday.  We work to provide them with the life skills that allow them to make good choices for themselves and prepare them to lead positive, violence free lives.”

Jamie also adds,  ”to be honest it was a disturbing feeling, but it also showed that we have a lot of work to do, we have to change how people think in order to change what they do”

From The New York Daily News

A made-for-tv gun battle erupted outside a Brooklyn baby shower for the wife of a star of the HBO crime series “The Wire” Sunday, killing one teen and wounding two men, cops said.

Gunmen unloaded nearly 50 bullets outside the party for the wife of actor Jamie Hector – who played violent druglord Marlo Stanfield on the hit series – then tried to finish off one of the wounded men outside a hospital.

“What a gun battle,” a police source told the Daily News. “They have been watching too much TV.”

Police and paramedics raced to E. 93rd St. in East Flatbush about 1:20 a.m.

Cops found evidence of a running gun battle with at least 46 shell casings dotting about half the block beginning at Avenue B.

Two guns were recovered, but no suspects were arrested after the violence that spilled out from the party.

Linton Williams, 17, of Brooklyn, died at the scene.

As the smoke cleared, someone helped 32-year-old Andrew Filson into a car and raced him to Downstate Medical Center.

When the shooting victim got out of the car at the hospital, another vehicle rolled up and someone inside started firing.

Police sources said Filson was hit at least once at the hospital.

Emergency workers put him into an ambulance and rushed him to Kings County Hospital, a trauma center where he was listed in critical condition yesterday.

Walter Parker, 22, was shot in the leg outside the party. He flagged down an ambulance and was taken to Brookdale University Hospital, where he was in stable condition.

Hector, a Brooklyn native who has also starred in TV shows “Heroes,” “Jericho” and “The Game,” was said to be at the baby shower for some time.

It was unclear whether the actor was still there when the bullets started flying – or why the gunmen targeted the three victims. Hector’s spokesman didn’t respond to calls for comment.

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A 16-year-old boy killed while running from a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy was shot in the back without warning and never brandished a gun as authorities contend, an attorney for the teen’s father said Tuesday.

A friend who was with Avery Cody never saw him with a weapon and he posed no threat to the deputy who shot him as he ran away in Compton on Sunday, said John E. Sweeney, an attorney who has handled many police abuse cases.

The boy’s family wants to know why he was killed “by an agency that’s sworn to protect and serve,” Sweeney said.

Sheriff’s homicide detectives were still investigating the case Tuesday, but preliminary evidence indicated that Cody pulled a fully loaded, .38-caliber revolver that was found near his body, said Lt. Dave Dolson, who is in charge of the probe.

“We’re pretty sure how it went down,” he said.

The deputy fired two shots and one hit the teen in the left side of his upper torso, not his back, Dolson said. “There’s nothing that we’ve found thus far that is anything that would generate controversy,” he said.

Residents of Compton often have had an uneasy relationship with law enforcement, and many are suspicious of police. The mainly black and Hispanic suburb south of downtown Los Angeles has struggled for decades with poverty and crime, especially gang violence.

Cody’s father, Avery Sr., wants the deputy charged and “brought to justice,” Sweeney said.

The boy and three friends had eaten at a local McDonald’s and were crossing a street when an unmarked sheriff’s patrol car stopped them “for no reason,” Sweeney said, citing an account given by one of the youngsters. “They had not done anything. They were walking in a calm manner,” he said.

A deputy ordered the youths to place their hands on the car, and then to lift up their T-shirts, Sweeney said. At that point, Cody ran. He was shot about 25 feet from the car, Sweeney said. Cody’s friends did not see the boy with a gun, the attorney said.

“He did not pull it, he did not brandish it, no one else saw it,” Sweeney said.

Dolson said two members of an anti-gang patrol stopped the four, but then declined to discuss what led the deputies to stop them, saying the details were still being investigated. He said however that the four had “associated themselves with a local street gang.”

The deputy shot Cody during a chase after the boy pulled a gun and “displayed it in a manner that made the deputy fear for his life,” Dolson said. No shots were fired by Cody and the deputy was not injured.

The 33-year-old deputy, an eight-year veteran, was on his regular days off and would be assigned to non-patrol duty when he returns if the investigation has not been completed, Dolson said.

Sheriff’s homicide and internal affairs investigators are reviewing the shooting. Homicide investigators will turn over their results to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office, which will determine whether criminal charges should be filed.

Cody attended Zinsmeyer Academy in Long Beach, Sweeney said. The school, operated by the nonprofit organization ChildNet Youth and Family Services, provides education and training in social skills to students of local districts who are at risk of failing, according to ChildNet’s Web site.

From the beginning of the year to June 28, deputies have shot and killed four people and wounded five others, Dolson said. No deputies have been wounded.

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A judge has issued a gag order in the capital murder case against the man accused of killing one soldier and wounding another at a military recruiting office in Arkansas.

Judge Alice Lightle issued the order Monday after prosecutors requested it to block court officials and police from discussing the case.

Jim Hensley, attorney for suspect Abdulhakim Muhammad, said last week his client was influenced by hardened terrorists with whom he was jailed in Yemen.

Muhammad allegedly wanted to kill as many soldiers as he could because of harm he believed the military has done to Muslims.

Killed at the west Little Rock office was Army Pvt. William Long of Conway, who had just completed basic training and never saw combat.

From NPR

Hensley says Muhammed told him he was working with children in Yemen and many of them were refugees from Afghanistan.

“Some of them are missing arms and some of them are terribly disfigured,” Hensley says.

Muhammed told his lawyer that he blamed the U.S. military for the children’s suffering. Muhammed also said he met Afghan women who claimed to have been raped by U.S. soldiers. This also clearly rankled him, Hensley says.

There is some debate over why, exactly, Muhammed ended up behind bars in Yemen. His parents say he told them that he was in for visa violations. Law enforcement officials said it was more than that, but declined to be specific. What is certain is that prison added to the disillusionment Muhammed was already feeling toward the U.S.

“For whatever reason, he winds up in a prison in Yemen around people who certainly don’t appreciate America,” Hensley says. “And they start telling him, ‘Look what you have seen; look what’s going on.’ And all this stuff weighs heavy on a young man, and he wants to do something.”

A judge ruled Thursday that a former transit police officer should stand trial on murder charges in the fatal shooting of an unarmed man on a train platform.

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Don Clay said there was sufficient evidence for ex-Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer Johannes Mehserle to face murder charges in the slaying of Oscar Grant early New Year’s Day.

Mehserle has pleaded not guilty.

Mehserle’s defense has contended that Mehserle accidentally grabbed his pistol instead of his stun gun when he shot Grant, who was face down on the platform.

“There is no doubt in my mind Mr. Mehserle meant to shoot Oscar Grant with a gun, not a Taser,” the judge said, concluding a seven-day preliminary hearing in Oakland. “It’s a dangerous act, an intentional act, a deliberate act.”

Videos of the incident that spread across the Internet show Mehserle, 27, firing a shot into the 22-year-old’s back. Officers had detained Grant and four friends at Oakland’s Fruitvale station for allegedly fighting on a train. The video prompted sometimes violent protests in Oakland.

When the judge rendered his decision, Mehserle sat looking straight ahead. Grant’s mother, Wanda Johnson, burst into tears.

After the court session, Johnson said, “I’m hurt. I’m saddened. Even if Mehserle goes to jail, his family is going to be hurt just like my family. They will have a loss. But their loss they will be able to go see. My loss, I have to go to the gravesite and look at my son’s headstone.”

Mehserle, who is free on $3 million bail, is next scheduled to appear June 18.

Rapper C-Murder has pleaded no contest to attempted murder charges.

The rapper, whose real name is Corey Miller, plead out to two counts of attempted second-degree murder will be sentenced to 10 years in prison in a deal with the state at the recommendation of the prosecutor.

Miller will also receive credit for time served in jail since August 2001.

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Watch A Video Of The Incident

A woman who videotaped a San Francisco Bay area transit officer killing an unarmed man has testified that the officer didn’t act overly aggressive before the shooting and appeared “dumbfounded” afterward.

Karina Vargas was one of several witnesses who recorded the New Year’s Day shooting.

She told the judge Monday at the preliminary hearing for Johannes Mehserle that she believed other officers were unnecessarily aggressive in detaining Oscar Grant, whom she said didn’t appear to be resisting arrest.

Videos show Mehserle firing a shot into Grant’s back as the man lay face down on a platform. He was being detained for allegedly fighting on a train.

Mehserle has pleaded not guilty to murder. His attorney has said the officer meant to reach for his stun gun.

BREAKING NEWS: Police Brutally Beat 14 Year Old in Toledo

From the LA Times

Inglewood police shot and killed a man who allegedly brandished a weapon early Sunday while officers were attempting to break up a birthday party, authorities said.

The shooting was the latest deadly incident involving Inglewood’s Police Department, which is under investigation by two outside agencies, including the U.S. Department of Justice, over its use of deadly force.

Police said officers responded to reports of a fight shortly after 12:45 a.m. in the 800 block of South Osage Avenue. Officers opened fire on Marcus Smith, 31, of Compton after he pointed a semiautomatic handgun at them, Lt. Mike McBride said.

“He had it in his hand. He drew it and pointed it in the direction of the officers,” McBride said. “So I would say that’s threatening the officers.”

One officer was shot in the right leg in the incident. He was taken to a hospital, treated and released, McBride said. Police suspect the officer was shot by Smith, but they need to conduct more tests on his gun to be sure, he said.

A woman who identified herself as Smith’s fiancee said she did not see him brandish a weapon. Kalonna LaCount said she and Smith were leaving the party together after police called on guests to disperse.

LaCount said she and Smith were walking down a stairway when Smith slipped. LaCount said she then saw Smith’s body jerk as police fired their weapons.

“He had his hands in the air,” she said. “The more he stumbled, the more they shot.”

LaCount said she was not certain whether Smith was armed or even owned a gun. LaCount, wearing a green dress stained with Smith’s blood, sat on the steps of the apartment building Sunday and wept as she recounted the moments before his death. LaCount said she and Smith had been together for 18 years and have three daughters, all under the age of 12.

Turning to her brother, Taqwa LaCount, she said: “He’s dead. Can you believe it? What am I going to do?”

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UPDATE: NY Shooting Victims From Haiti, Other Nations

The 13 people shot to death by a Vietnamese-born man in a U.S. immigration services center last week came from a host of nations including China, Haiti, the Philippines and Iraq, authorities said on Sunday.

The nationalities of the victims were released as police continued to investigate the mass murder Friday at the American Civic Association building in Binghamton, New York, which provided English classes and other services to newcomers.

Four of the dead were from China. Others came from the Philippines, Iraq, Brazil, Haiti, Vietnam, the United States and Pakistan. They ranged in age from 22 to 72, Binghamton Mayor Matthew Ryan’s office said.

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Man Takes Hostages, Kills 12 and Himself in Upstate N.Y., April 3, 2009

A gunman opened fire at an immigration services center in downtown Binghamton on Friday, killing as many as 13 people before authorities found him dead, officials said.

Gov. David Paterson said at a news conference that 12 or 13 people had been killed.

A law enforcement official said the body of the man believed to be the gunman was found in an office of the American Civic Association building. The official was not authorized to speak publicly about the details of an ongoing hostage situation and was talking on condition of anonymity.

The gunman barricaded the rear door of the building with his car before entering through the front door, firing his weapon, the official said.

It wasn’t clear whether the gunman was included in the number of dead provided by the governor.

The Binghamton Press & Sun Bulletin reported that citizenship classes had been scheduled Friday at the center.

The Binghamton SWAT team responded, and the FBI was sending hostage negotiators and an evidence response team to the scene. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was also sending agents to Binghamton.

Indications were that the shooter was a young male, the law enforcement official said.

The American Civic Association is an organization that helps immigrants in the Binghamton area with naturalization applications, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The association describes itself as helping immigrants and refugees with counseling, resettlement, citizenship, family reunification and translators.

The association’s president, Angela Leach, “is very upset right now,” said Mike Chanecka, a friend who answered a call at her home as Leach wept in the background.

“She doesn’t know anything; she’s as shocked as anyone,” Chanecka said. “For some reason, she had the day off today. And she’s very worried about her secretary.”

Five people with gunshot wounds were being treated at Wilson Medical Center in Johnson City, according to hospital spokeswoman Christina Boyd.

The wounded ranged in age from 20 to their mid-50s, and their conditions ranged from stable to critical, she said.

Linda Miller, a spokeswoman at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Binghamton, said a student from Binghamton University was being treated there.

The shooting occurred in a mixed neighborhood of homes and small businesses in the center of Binghamton, a city of about 47,000 located 140 miles northwest of New York City.

College student Leslie Shrager told the AP that she and her five housemates were sleeping when police pounded on the front door of their house next door to the shooting scene.

Officers escorted the six Binghamton University students outside, she said, and that’s when they learned of the shooting.

“One of our housemates thought they heard banging of some kind. But when you’re living in downtown Binghamton, it’s always noisy,” said Shrager, of Slingerlands, an Albany suburb. “Literally two minutes later the cops came and got us out.”

At the junction of the Susquehanna and the Chenango rivers, the Binghamton area was the home to Endicott-Johnson shoe company and the birthplace of IBM, which between them employed tens of thousands of workers before the shoe company closed a decade ago and IBM downsized in recent years.

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Houston Rockets forward Carl Landry is expected to miss one to three weeks after he was shot in the left leg early Tuesday while driving near his home.

The injury was minor, and the team said Landry was treated at a hospital and released. Landry, who also dislocated a finger on his left hand, also was examined by team doctor Tom Clanton.

The shooting occurred about 2:30 a.m., a few hours after the Rockets returned from a game at New Orleans. Landry drove home after the team arrived about 12:30 a.m.

Houston police said Landry was driving his sport utility vehicle southbound on a city street, when a northbound car swerved into his path and collided with his vehicle. Landry and the driver of the other vehicle made U-turns and the vehicles collided again and Landry’s SUV hit a utility pole.

Police spokesman Kese Smith said Landry got out of his SUV to inspect the damage, and was shot by one of the two occupants of the car. The suspects then fled the scene, while Landry ran to get help, police said.

Smith originally said the incident occurred about 4 a.m., but said later that was the time authorities were notified. Smith did not know if Landry was the person who called police.

Landry had a female passenger in his SUV, and she was not injured, police said.

General manager Daryl Morey visited Landry at the hospital and said he sustained a surface wound that was no worse than a calf strain.

“We’re just happy Carl is okay,” Morey said. “By what we can understand, he was very lucky – obviously unlucky to have this situation happen to him, but very lucky that he came out without anything major.”

The 6-foot-9 Landry has become a valuable player off the bench for the Rockets, averaging 9.3 points and five rebounds in his second NBA season. He had 12 points and six rebounds in Monday’s 95-84 win that kept Houston in third place in the Western Conference standings.

Houston coach Rick Adelman said he had not talked to Landry since the shooting, but several players had checked in with their teammate.

“He just sounded happy, blessed,” said point guard Aaron Brooks. “It was a situation that pretty much anybody could’ve been in. He’s just blessed to be OK, blessed that he’s alive and that he’ll be back and be Carl again.”

Adelman said Landry’s injury could mean more playing time for Chuck Hayes and Dikembe Mutombo, who played 25 minutes on Monday’s victory.

“Obviously, it hurts us,” Adelman said of Landry’s absence. “But on the other hand, it’s going to give other guys the chance to step up and play. We’ve got to have that from everybody else. It’s going to hurt us, but he’ll be back and the rest of our group has to try to step up and win games.”

Landry was drafted by Seattle in the second round in 2007, then traded to Houston for a future second-round pick and cash. He averaged eight points and 4.9 rebounds in 2007-08.

In Game 3 of a first-round series against Utah, Landry blocked Deron Williams’ layup try with 3.4 seconds left to preserve Houston’s 94-92 victory. Landry also lost a tooth in that game after taking an elbow from Utah’s Carlos Boozer.

“Carl has been great for us,” Houston forward Shane Battier said. “His energy and punch off the bench has been outstanding. But it’s ironic that other guys will get a chance to step in, much like he got a chance to step in and give us a lift last year.

“We’re not worried about Carl from the basketball standpoint. That’s the least of our worries. We just want him to get healthy and deal with this episode.”

A gunman went on a shooting spree in two neighboring south Alabama towns Tuesday, killing nine people before he shot himself at a metals plant, authorities said. Police are investigating at least four separate shootings, all believed to be done by one gunman, whose name was not released, the Alabama Department of Safety said in a statement.

The shootings began late in the afternoon in Samson. The shooter killed five people in one home and one each in two other homes.

The gunman also shot at a state trooper’s car, striking the vehicle seven times and wounding the trooper with broken glass.

He then killed someone at a Samson supply store and another person at a service station, the safety department said.

Police pursued him to Reliable Metal Products just north of Geneva, about a dozen miles southeast of Samson, where he fired an estimated 30 rounds. One of the bullets hit Geneva Police Chief Frankie Lindsey, who was saved by his bullet proof vest, the safety department said.

The statement says the gunman then went in the plant and shot himself. His name was not released.

The gunman had worked at Reliable Metal, said state Rep. Warren Beck, a Republican whose district includes Geneva.

“My secretary heard gunfire everywhere,” he said. “This is one of the most tragic events ever in Geneva County.”

State Sen. Harri Anne Smith, R-Slocomb, said some of those killed in Samson were sitting outside.

“He was just driving down the street shooting at people sitting on their porches,” she said. “A family was just sitting on the porch and they were shot.”

Reliable Metal Products makes grills and vents for heating and AC systems, mainly for hotels. A call to a person who answered the phone at the plant said no one could talk about the shooting.

The towns of Geneva and Samson are roughly 30 miles south of Fort Rucker, near the Florida border in southeast Alabama. Geneva’s population is about 4,400 and Samson, 2,000.

Smith and Beck were at the Statehouse when state troopers came to get them and took them to Geneva County. Smith said the governor’s office is sending resources and state troopers are setting up a command post.

An internationally diverse student body is vital to Virginia Tech, the school’s president said Wednesday in response to e-mails and blogs disparaging Asians that surfaced after a Chinese student was accused of decapitating a classmate.

The killing last month was the first since Seung-Hui Cho, a Korean student, killed 32 people in a mass shooting in 2007 and revived memories of the tragedy.

Some of the comments from parents, alumni and members of the public questioned whether the university should allow international students to attend the school. Others supported the university’s international community.

President Charles Steger said in an open letter that the school was enriched by its diversity and that overall there were few reports of international students getting into trouble.

“Virginia Tech is an open and accepting community including many races, ethnicities, and cultures from around the world,” Steger wrote in the letter.

Steger said there was no evidence that the decapitation of Xin Yang, 22, in a campus coffee shop Jan. 21 had anything to do with her ethnicity, Steger said. Both Yang and suspect Haiyang Zhu, who is charged with first-degree murder, are from China.

The school has more than 2,100 students from 72 foreign countries among its full-time enrollment of 30,000.

University spokesman Larry Hincker said school officials have received several dozen letters as well as e-mails and calls attacking foreigners. Hincker called the comments “xenophobic barbs.”

The head of a support service for the school’s international community said the comments on blogs began the night of the recent slaying. They ranged from “being very supportive to being very irrational,” said Kim Beisecker, director of the Cranwell International Center on campus.

Beisecker said there hasn’t been any immediate reaction to Steger’s letter or the comments from the Chinese community.

One Chinese student, Yan Ni, said the campus atmosphere had not changed since the killing.

“I didn’t feel any difference,” the student said in an e-mail.

Steger said the school’s judicial system has had a low number of offenses by international students. He also said national statistics show Asians are 10 times less likely than whites to commit homicide in the United States.

Steger said the recent killing revived memories of the mass killing in April 2007 when Cho shot 32 people to death in a dormitory and classroom building before taking his own life.

“Many, we are sure, are wondering ‘Why us?’” Steger said.

The president noted that Virginia Tech’s campus had never been the scene of a student killing until those slayings.

“These events are troubling when seen against the backdrop of the normally serene college environment,” he said.

Zhu, 25, a doctoral student who came to Virginia Tech last August, is being held without bond pending a preliminary court hearing March 5. His lawyer, Stephanie Cox, has not returned telephone calls seeking comment and a spokeswoman at her office said Wednesday she was unavailable.

Yang was pursuing a master’s degree in accounting and had arrived on campus less than two weeks before she was slain. A university official said she and Zhu apparently had met only recently, and he had been helping her adjust to campus life.

Suing police officers is good business for civil rights lawyer John Burris.

Over the past 30 years, the former prosecutor has earned millions of dollars for handling hundreds of police brutality suits, other racially charged cases and high-profile lawsuits.

Burris, 63, helped win a $3.8 million jury verdict for Rodney King over a videotaped beating in 1991 at the hands of Los Angeles police. He defended basketball star Latrell Sprewell against reckless driving charges in 1998. And he obtained a $42,000 settlement for the late rapper Tupac Shakur in a 1991 brutality suit against the Oakland police.

So it came as little surprise in legal circles that Burris was hired by the family of Oscar Grant, the 22-year-old black man gunned down by a white transit police officer as he lay face down on a Bay Area Rapid Transit platform here on New Year’s Day.

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Prosecutors allege that Grant was restrained and about to be handcuffed when BART officer Johannes Mehserle shot him once in the back. Murder charges have been filed against Mehserle; Burris has filed a $25 million claim on behalf of Grant’s family.

Burris said Grant’s death is one of the two most unsettling cases he has handled since graduating from the University of California, Berkeley’s law school in 1976. The other is the lawsuit he filed for the family of Mack “Jody” Woodfox, who was fatally shot in the back while fleeing Oakland police after a traffic stop in July.

“It’s the shooting in the back that causes people to go nuts,” Burris said of the sometimes-violent demonstrations here over Grant’s death. “That’s as bad as it gets.”

Burris’ portfolio and his visibility as a television commentator have helped forge his reputation as an aggressive advocate for Northern California’s black community.

Burris figures he takes about 50 police brutality cases a year. Many are relatively small, such as ex-convicts getting teeth knocked out by police or black women accusing officers of conducting illegal strip searches.

But in 2006, he helped secure $1.3 million in settlements from the city of Oakland after Iraq war protesters accused police of using excessive force to break up a raucous demonstration.

In 2003, Burris won a $10.9 million settlement from Oakland to settle the notorious “Riders” case, in which police allegedly arrested and planted evidence on 119 innocent suspects. It remains the city’s largest settlement.

“Every case begets another case,” he said.

His biggest target, by far, is the Oakland Police Department.

Neither Oakland City Attorney John Russo, whose office routinely fights Burris’ lawsuits, nor Oakland Police Department union president Dom Arotzarena were willing to share their thoughts about Burris.

Burris has sometimes been in trouble with the law himself. In 2005, a federal judge sharply rebuked him for failing to properly investigate a claim before filing one lawsuit.

U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker fined Burris and another lawyer $10,800 for filing a lawsuit after only a single interview with the clients, who accused the police department of wrongly killing a mentally disturbed Oakland resident who stabbed an officer.

Burris defended himself before the judge by pointing to his long track record of filing successful lawsuits.

“Indeed, Burris’ years of experience and success serve to magnify the egregiousness of the conduct at issue in this case,” Walker said in ordering sanctions.

Burris’ clients fired him in 2007, and the judge filed a complaint to the State Bar last year. Burris said he hired a lawyer to write a letter to the state bar, and that officials there “closed the file” without taking any disciplinary action.

It wasn’t the first time Burris got into legal hot water. In 1996, the State Bar suspended him for 30 days for sending misleading solicitations to victims of mass disasters, which he blamed on overzealous underlings. He was also chided at the same time for improperly mixing clients’ money with his own, and the bar found that he “recklessly failed to perform legal services with competence,” according to bar records.

But it was that same year that Burris worked on what would be his proudest case.

Burris said he defended for free a six-year-old boy charged with assault for dumping an infant out of a bassinet and then beating him. Burris convinced a juvenile court referee to put the boy into foster care rather than the criminal system.

Burris said he has kept in contact with his client, who is soon to be released from state care as an 18-year-old.

“He made it,” Burris said.